The Maw

by Taylor Zajonc

  Groaning out loud, Milo slapped himself on the cheeks with both hands, forcing himself to stay awake. The memories were a burden, a curse. He couldn’t contextualize them, rob them of power, intentionally misremember in any way. Every time his mind flashed to the waking nightmares, it was as though he were back again, the images just as shocking and horrifying as they’d been the first time, maybe even more so by their repetition. Milo wondered what would happen if he too placed himself within his favorite memories, become as glass-eyed and impossibly distant as Bridget. Could he ever leave, swim his way back to a fully conscious state? Or would the next cavers through the passageway find the unsolvable puzzle of two mummified bodies huddled in grief over a broken third?

  Milo watched Bridget for the longest time, a passage immeasurable within the silent cavern halls. Every so often, her face would twitch with a glimmer of remembered joy. After waiting what felt like hours, Milo gently took Bridget by the hand, softly stroking her palm until life flickered back into her eyes and she looked him. Her face went ashen as she reoriented herself to her surroundings, forcing herself to divert her eyes from Duck’s lifeless body.

  “Where were you?” asked Milo.

  Bridget just shook her head. “You weren’t invited,” she answered.

  Milo couldn’t help but wonder why—maybe because he reminded her of this cold, stony hell. Or worse, because her memories of him were not an escape.

  “We can’t bring him back to camp,” said Bridget. “I don’t have the strength.”

  “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do,” said Milo. “I wish he was here to tell us.”

  “What would your explorers say?” asked Bridget.

  Milo grimaced. “That’s a very difficult question,” he answered.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re all so hungry.”

  “You’re not suggesting—” began Bridget, her voice choked with abject horror. “You can’t possibly—”

  “Of course not,” insisted Milo. “We’re not there yet . . . what I mean to say is, I would never—” Eat him, he didn’t say.

  “I’d rather die,” said Bridget. “I’d rather die than desecrate my friend’s body.”

  “We may not be the problem,” said Milo, frowning. “We have to tell them he’s dead, and somebody’s going to put two and two together.”

  “Then let’s bury him,” said Bridget. “We have to bury him; we’ll keep the location a secret. Nobody will think to look in here unless we tell them.”

  Milo just nodded. It wasn’t as though the thought hadn’t crossed his mind; everyone knew they’d have to deal with Isabelle once she relinquished her grip on the last threads of life. The same went for Duck—left to the wilderness like so many ill-fated alpine climbers, their bodies left in situ to the elements or buried under what little their comrades foraged. It would still be a greater dignity than the bodies at the entrance hatch.

  They first went about the grim, silent duty of stripping Duck of supplies. Milo gently slipped off his cave lamp and shredded gloves while Bridget fished through his pockets, taking the carabiner and working rappel rack but leaving his harness, boots, and clothes untouched.

  “Look,” said Bridget, opening her hand to show Milo. She held several still-charged batteries she’d found in his pockets.

  “I found something too,” said Milo, feeling the familiar crinkle of a wrapper within the cave guide’s breast pocket.

  “What type?” asked Bridget, eyeing Milo’s hands as he withdrew two granola bars.

  “Peanut butter and chocolate,” answered Milo. “Perfect, as if I didn’t feel shitty enough already.”

  “I want to eat it now,” said Bridget.

  Milo just shook his head again. “We promised we’d bring back anything that we found along the way,” he answered.

  “You’re such a Boy Scout,” said Bridget, rolling her eyes.

  Milo and Bridget dragged Duck by his boots, tugging the body toward a long, narrow trench less than a hundred feet from where he’d fallen. Any further and they’d have to contend with the maze of passageways, an impossible prospect. Together, they rolled his body into the shallow trench, Duck’s coverall-clad form sliding into the coffin-width crack. Bridget crossed the young man’s arms over his chest. Duck almost looked as though he were sleeping, if not for his deathly pale skin and sunken eyes.

  “I feel like we should say something,” said Bridget. “I think he’d want us to remember him.”

  “I don’t think we could forget, even if we wanted to,” said Milo with a wry smile.

  “Just . . . say something,” said Bridget. “Something nice.”

  Milo nodded and cleared his throat as he collected his thoughts. The longest pause fell between them.

  “The darkness was Duck’s light,” he finally said. “He radiated charm and good cheer despite the miseries all around him. He was the warm heart of our expedition, a man who honored journey above destination, people above prize.”

  Bridget nodded in agreement, stifling resurgent tears.

  “Dwayne ‘Duck’ Spurlock was just twenty-five,” continued Milo. “He gave his life not for his own ambition, but to find a man who’d abandoned us at our hour of greatest need. He was selfless. He was kind. He was our friend.”

  Bridget reached over and placed a soft hand Milo’s shoulder before bending down and picking up a fist-sized rock, which she then gently placed at the center of Duck’s chest.

  “Thank you for everything,” she whispered. “I’m sorry this happened.”

  Milo followed suit, picking up two rocks from beside the trench and gently placing them on top of the young caver’s body.

  “Duck, there’s a quote I’d like to say,” whispered Milo to the still body. “In his novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne wrote the following: ‘Where there is life, there is hope . . . as long as man’s heart beats, as long as a man’s flesh quivers, I do not allow that a being gifted with thought and will can allow himself to despair.’”

  Milo reached for Bridget’s hand. She took it this time, squeezing his in acknowledgement.

  “At every instance we may perish,” said Bridget solemnly; Milo recognized the beginning of the quote from another passage of the same book—she’d read it as well, perhaps as a child. “And so too, every instant we may be saved.”

  “We must choose to live,” promised Milo, his voice rising as he turned to address Bridget. “We must choose to live, if for no other reason than to tell his story.”

  CHAPTER 29:

  DEATH RATTLE

  2,475 feet below the surface

  Dry, stagnant air collected in Milo’s lungs as he stumbled down the descending passageway. He turned sideways, exhaling the air from his lungs to slip between the narrow walls. True to his clear memories, the winding path ended abruptly at a vast open expanse, his dwindling lamp giving no sense of the true length of the great chasm.

  Bridget belted a halloo across the expanse, which was returned with a diminished, echoing response from an unseen Joanne. Milo nodded. The makeshift camp still stood atop the massive rock clutched between canyon walls, but to conserve batteries, the party had long since surrendered the outpost to darkness.

  Milo’s lamp flickering behind her, Bridget led the way back to camp, scaling the nylon ropes and anchors from the passageway termination and thirty feet up and along the vertical wall before reaching the flat-topped rock. There was no greeting, the permeating darkness made all the more encompassing by the surrounding void. Milo’s light fell across two empty sleeping bags, abandoned white-gas containers, and week-old discarded wrappers before reaching Joanne’s hollow, vacant face.

  A sound—Milo jolted his lamp to the side, the light spilling over Dale Brunsfield for the first time in days. Dale now spent most of his time on solo explorations, never explaining his intentions or whereabouts. He’d simply mumble an excuse and disappear for hours at a time. Unlike Logan, he’d always managed to return, though his comings a
nd goings had become increasingly erratic and unpredictable. Milo couldn’t help but wonder if Dale still expected imminent rescue, or if he’d finally resigned himself to the hopelessness of it all.

  Dale didn’t even look up at the light, just held up a hand to shield his eyes. He held Lord Riley DeWar’s leather-bound journal in his lap, the pages opened to a section midway through the schizophrenic, indecipherable scribblings as though he’d been reading. Useless in the dark, of course, but Milo couldn’t help wonder if the tactile sensations—turning the fragile pages, running fingers over the ink-splattered indentations—somehow assisted the photographic memory they now all shared.

  “Don’t interrupt him,” croaked Joanne. She sounded sick, but no worse than the rest of them. “He’s concentrating. He doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

  Milo nodded, gulping down another wave of grief as he prepared to speak.

  “Duck’s dead,” blurted Bridget, unable to wait.

  A flinch darted across Joanne’s impassive face, and then a second as she replayed the statement in her thoughts, as though seeking any alternate interpretation or flaw in the two-word statement.

  “How?” she asked, still not looking up at Bridget or Milo.

  “Rappel rack failure,” answered Bridget. “He fell.”

  “You mean he fucked up,” said Joanne, turning to stare at Bridget for the first time, her dead eyes glinting in the lamplight.

  “Yeah,” Bridget answered softly. “He did.”

  “Regret to hear that,” interjected Dale, slapping the leather journal shut as he looked up at the returning pair. “He was a good man.”

  “Did he . . . suffer?” asked Joanne, a single tear welling in one of her eyes.

  “No,” answered Milo, speaking for the first time. “It was practically over before he even knew what happened.”

  Dale nodded and turned back to the journal, flipping through the pages to where he’d left off. Bridget strode over and knelt down next to Dale, trying and failing to get his attention.

  “Don’t you have anything else to ask me?” pleaded Bridget, placing one hand on his unmoving shoulders. “Don’t you care?”

  “I need to get back to this,” said Dale, stiffly. “Milo abandoned DeWar’s journal to search for Logan. He should have stayed and kept at it. Someone needs to solve this riddle. Lord Riley DeWar is the key to everything, you know.”

  Bridget tried shaking Dale’s shoulder but he wouldn’t even look up. He just kept staring at the pages as though enough concentration alone could force the book to reveal its secrets.

  “Got something for you,” said Milo, reaching into Duck’s frayed bag. “We found it in the anthill on the way back.”

  He carefully removed Dale’s robot, the exposed circuit boards and wires visible within the dented shoebox-sized casing. Both tracks had been ripped off by the flood, and a delicate appendage at the top held the remains of a shattered camera lens.

  “It was hung up in a calcite curtain,” Milo continued. “Bridget spotted it all the way up, practically in the ceiling. We must have walked right under it a half-dozen times.”

  “Good,” said Joanne, no emotion in her voice as she acknowledged the find. “Might be able to find a few amps in the lithium-ion batteries. Should be good for a few hours’ light.”

  “Or it’ll short out whatever you wire it to,” grunted Dale, again without looking up. “Bring food next time or don’t bother coming back at all.”

  At least she’s trying, Milo could have said as he fished out the two granola bars. But he didn’t.

  Milo and Bridget backtracked out of the canyon chasm, following the nylon ropes across the gap to the ledge. Once again on solid ground, they carefully made their way into one of the side chambers, to where they’d relocated Isabelle. The producer still clung to life, unconscious in her blanket-covered plastic litter. A body-wide infection had taken hold, but what should have been her final hours had stretched into days. She breathed light and shallow, her face flushed and red, heart struggling to pump thickening, dehydrated blood.

  Charlie remained curled up beside her, not even a blanket separating his body from the cold cavern floor. Like Joanne and Dale, he was almost completely unresponsive, barely even blinking at the reintroduction of light to the dark room.

  “Any changes?” asked Bridget as she leaned over Isabelle’s flushed form.

  Charlie didn’t even shake his head, just stared off into the distance as though he were alone. Unlike Bridget, he hadn’t retreated into a happy memory—he had descended into nothingness itself, leaving behind a figure more void than man.

  Bridget pulled back the blanket, exposing Isabelle’s blackened, gangrenous skin. Drying pus collected around her seeping wounds, and the angry bruising had turned hard and dark. There were no more painkillers, antibiotics, or improvised intravenous fluid. Even if help had arrived days ago, there was still little chance Isabelle would have ever seen the sun again.

  “Charlie—say something,” said Bridget, louder this time. “Tell me you’re still here with us.”

  When Charlie didn’t respond, Milo shuffled closer to the man, gently shaking his shoulder. Charlie still wouldn’t even acknowledge them.

  “He’s completely catatonic,” Bridget said, shaking her head in anger. “Not that it matters; Isabelle doesn’t need him anymore. She has hours at most. Part of me hoped she’d pass before our return.”

  “How about you?” said Milo, sitting down next to Bridget. “This is a stupid question—but are you okay?”

  “No,” answered Bridget. “I’ve never been less okay in my life. I feel so fucking useless; I can’t even make Isabelle comfortable. The merciful thing would be to bash her head in with a rock, end her suffering.”

  Milo and Bridget simultaneously glanced toward Charlie, wondering if he’d react to the stark, uncompromising assertion. He said nothing.

  “Hey Charlie,” Bridget shouted, leaning over Isabelle’s body as she spoke. “Duck is dead. You got anything to say about that?”

  “We’re all fucking dead,” spat Charlie, briefly turning his head toward them and then turning it back.

  Bridget trembled with anger and disgust. But she still broke off a piece of her granola bar and passed it to Charlie, who ate it without thanking her.

  Bridget split the last piece between Milo and herself. Milo chewed slowly, trying to enjoy the rush of chocolate and sugar. He only felt like he was going to throw up, his stomach assaulted by the sudden influx of dense calories for the first time in days. Sipping out of his water bottle, he willed the sweet morsel to stay down.

  “I need to sleep,” announced Bridget, standing up to walk over to the rope lines leading to the flat rock. “Tell Charlie to wake me up when Isabelle dies.”

  “You want company?” offered Milo.

  “No,” Bridget answered. “I really don’t.”

  Milo sat at the edge of the great suspended rock where they’d struck camp, feet dangling over the side. His mind wandered, wondering how it would feel to drop into the chasm, wind whistling; one final thrill as he plummeted into the abyss for the last time. Maybe he’d have time to pick a memory before he hit the bottom, experience one last happy moment before it all came to an end.

  He still had no idea of what lay at the bottom of the chasm. With his luck, it would be a shallow sump, enough to arrest his fall but fracture his legs and spine, leaving him suspended between life and death, fully conscious to all suffering as he drowned alone in the dark.

  Feet still dangling, Milo put his hands behind his head, shifting onto his back, and fell into a light, fitful sleep. He used his brief intermissions of consciousness to try to steer his dreams toward the fertile valley dreamscape, but he found only more darkness and rock. Indistinguishable voices, some familiar, some alien and ancient, whispered and screamed at him from the void.

  Milo awoke to a great commotion. Charlie stood on the ledge facing the suspended rock, waving and shouting. One flashlight after an
other clicked on, slicing through the darkness as they collected on Charlie like a spotlight, blinding him with harsh white illumination. Still gesturing with one hand, Charlie held the other to his forehead, stanching a head wound as blood trickled through his fingers.

  Joanne and Dale sprang to their feet, almost vaulting across the flat rock toward the edge. Bridget tripped, slamming a hand onto Milo’s shoulders as she caught herself. But Milo hardly noticed the blow.

  “What happened?” shouted Bridget, her voice easily carrying across the rope-bridged gap between them.

  “I can’t find Isabelle!” snapped Charlie, angrily clamping a palm to his own bloody forehead.

  “Isabelle?” said Joanne. “She’s awake? She’s moving?”

  “She’s not just awake,” shouted Charlie, dropping his bloody hand to reveal the deep cut on his face. “She’s fucking gone.”

  CHAPTER 30:

  ORACLE

  Depth unknown

  Milo crawled through the tight tunnels, ignoring the overwhelming fatigue as he pushed his emaciated body ever further. Charlie led the desperate search for Isabelle, Bridget and Joanne on his heels, Milo huffing and wheezing at the back of the pack. He couldn’t believe how fast Charlie could move on all fours. The starvation that afflicted the rest of them hadn’t slowed him down an iota.

  The last thing Dale said was that he’d wait at camp, a familiar face in case Isabelle returned on her own. Milo knew she wouldn’t, just as he knew Dale would likely disappear again once the rest were out of earshot.

  None of the party acknowledged their dwindling batteries, all four setting their headlamps to the highest power output. The missing woman had left quite a trail, shedding clothing and filthy bandages along the way as she dragged her battered body into the depths. She’d sliced open her bare knees on a spider’s web of sharp calcite ridges not far from camp, leaving smudged bloody drag marks in the dust behind her.